Norma likes grapes. She is 89 and lives about 143 miles away from me. She has a deep commitment to Morrisons fish and chips, loves butter mints, and is always trying to slip her granddaughter a tenner. That’s what Norma is like. It feels as though we’ve grown close in recent weeks. But the truth is, I’ve never met her. I’m one of her 2 million followers on TikTok, checking in daily to see what she has been up to. She has been on a Stannah stairlift to fame ever since her granddaughter Jess started her TikTok account during the pandemic.
I’ve found nans online a source of comfort ever since my own died recently. My gran was about as far removed from social media as you can get. She died at the grand old age of 97, could barely see or hear, and was utterly fed up. But she was remarkable. She was a Holocaust survivor, studied for a PhD in zoology, and her mind could cut glass. In conversations she could jostle between Arthur Koestler and drop scones, and even tell you in detail how to dip a sheep. Her name was Erika Renate Przibram Wallis, and she died on Monday 18 December at 4.45am. I saw her just weeks before – regal, demure, but happy to go. “Be good,” were the last words she said to me. “But not too good.”
